American Hustle

I'm confused by all this talk about the movie being convoluted. It's about an overzealous cop employing a couple of con artists to catch politicians accepting kickbacks. It's just a funny movie with no real intention of fooling the audience.

My only problem is the casting of Jennifer Lawrence. People keep giving this 22-year-old roles that require someone with a little more world experience.

I watched it last night (though I dozed off a couple times and will try to rewatch it), and it didn't impress me much. Acting was good. Story, not so much. It was pretty obvious from the get-go how the overall arc was going to play out, so you just watched it for the "players" and just didn't keep me involved in it. By the time you get to the ending, you're just confirming what you though was going to happen, and there's no real twist or cool way the characters went about it.

To be fair, Amy Adams sucks. She always has. I don't know how she keeps getting roles. She's pretty unidimensional in the parts I see her in, and she's not hot enough to be cast for looks alone (actually, I'm pretty sure the minute she stops working out she's going to blimp it up bigtime - in this movie she somehow lost most of her marshmallow neck, though).

I also felt they spent too much effort trying to showcase the 70s rather than making it the environment for the story/characters.

supertouch_sl said:

I'm confused by all this talk about the movie being convoluted. It's about an overzealous cop employing a couple of con artists to catch politicians accepting kickbacks. It's just a funny movie with no real intention of fooling the audience.

My only problem is the casting of Jennifer Lawrence. People keep giving this 22-year-old roles that require someone with a little more world experience.

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The only part that isn't believable about her performances is her youth, she fucking nails the parts though, even though she shouldn't be able to.

supertouch_sl said:

It's just a funny movie with no real intention of fooling the audience.

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It should have just been made into a comedy. It wasn't actually a comedy, far from it. It had some good laughs but it would have been a much better movie overall if they got rid of all the feels and terrible story and piled on the lols.

Khane_sl said:

It should have just been made into a comedy. It wasn't actually a comedy, far from it. It had some good laughs but it would have been a much better movie overall if they got rid of all the feels and terrible story and piled on the lols.

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Somewhat agree with this, but still think it was a decent movie with some spectacular acting, aside from Ms. Lawrence.

She looks great, but... fuck...

Movie was fun. Bale was great.

Loved it, only thing I hated was certain characters getting fucked over

I fucking despised Lawrence as a character. I wanted her dead in every possible way.

Sometimes "those people" never really get what's coming to them. Always playing the victim and shit like that.

As for the ice fishing story:
Brother wanted to fish, but father said it was too soon. Ice wasn't thick enough yet.
Father saw that kids weren't in their room and came out to the ice to find them.
Kid 1 said they were watching the stars or a sunrise or something.
Later on in life, the brother died. It was not related.

Am I missing anything here? I want this story!

You know how Amy Adams wears those blouses so that all the people she's conning aren't paying attention to anything but her tits? That happened to me at the theater. I went to see a movie but all I remember is cleavage. I don't know if the movie was good or bad. I was conned.

Movie was average.

Some great acting performances combined with an average and somewhat predictable story still makes for an entertaining movie. Better than 90% of the garbage Hollywood spews out on a regular basis, but not great.

I keep thinking the director David O Russel is going to take that next step to becoming one of the great directors of the current generation like a Christopher Nolan or Darren Aronofsky, but Russel's movies just can't seem to take the leap from very good & entertaining to great and unique. He did Three Kings back in the 90s, and that was unexpectedly awesome and then The Fighter was very solid as well, but mostly carried by Christian Bales performance, just like American Hustle is. He's a damn good director, but I can't quite put him in that top-tier of current directors. He's a small step down from there.

I'm a huge David O Russel fan from even back in the 90's when I first saw spanking the monkey on IFC.

He's just another brilliant screenwriter, in the vain of the Coen brothers, Wes Anderson, Owen Wilson, Tarantino etc..
Coming from a long line of great writers such as Jim Jarmusch, that spiked that type of storytelling back when Indie films were starting to get more of a presence.

So I'm a little bias on American Hustle, but I thought the performances that David can draw out of an actor have always been A+
He's such a good Actors director that he brought 7 academy award nominations between Silver Linings and the Fighter.

This is definitely the type of movie that the Academy likes so I'll be interested to see what its up against once the nominations are announced.

Jennifer needs a better accent.

She should have died so hard in that movie. Oh I hated her so much.

This film was too hyped.

Good acting, but I couldn't care less about the characters and what happened to them. Well, except for the mayor.
Otherwise, everyone was a low life deserving of whatever happened to them.